New Wineskins and Old Jeans

In the gospels we find a Jesus who exemplified a service that was relational, loving and sacrificial.  It was a service born out of a pure heart. This reality begs the question, How are our hearts?  At Cornerstone, our desire is to actively pursue His mission to love God and others, but this is only possible with new hearts.  You may recall Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
We read in Mark 2:21-22, “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” ​

 
Our passion to serve like Jesus requires the newness that Jesus brings.  But what of our old hearts?  Frankly, they need to die.  In this passage, we find two old things destroyed, both the garment and the old wineskin.  Neither are adequate to move forward with the addition of something new.  In the context of the New Testament, The old ways are not compatible with how Jesus is moving forward.  
In the gospels, Jesus is bringing something fresh.  Something that tears away at the old way of thinking.  The old ways may have been admittedly comfortable, it’s what we are used to.  Like your favorite pair of jeans at home, or that shirt you had since college that your wife threatens to throw away.  We enjoy the familiarity of the status quo.  In the gospels, Jesus is bringing something completely different and it requires something completely different to contain it.  

It’s been said that, “Christianity is not just sewing Jesus into your old habits.”  You can’t sew Jesus into your life and expect to continue your old worn out ways. Jesus pulls at the old self and demands change. Not just change, but ultimately a complete transformation of our hearts. 
Jesus continues his teaching with an analogy about wineskins. New wine needs to be put in flexible skins so the skin has room to expand as the wine ferments. If new wine is put into an old, brittle skin, it will burst the skin.  Jesus is like new wine that must be put into an entirely new vessel.  As we consider the heart of an active servant we see that it begins with a whole new heart and a whole new way of thinking. This is absolutely necessary if we are to move forward with Jesus.
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There are values and convictions in place at Cornerstone  that must never change.  Change for the sake of change isn’t necessary or helpful.  That being said, we might consider how God is moving our church in new and exciting ways.  As the Holy Spirit stretches our comfort level, as we reach out in obedience to a culture that is unrecognizable to many of us, let us have the courage to ask this question;  What changes might we embrace for the sake of the Kingdom?  What do new flexible wineskins look like?  Are there old wineskins that we need to retire?  Are there meaningful things we can change for the sake of God’s mission here in Wellington?  
I have seen many churches in the embracing of what’s new, tear away at the fabric of what was before.  This is not our heart.  Our heart is to bring as many people into the presence of Jesus as possible.  With wisdom and discernment, we can embrace the changes necessary to engage God’s mission in building His Kingdom.

On mission together for His glory! 
Pastor Chris